The Editor inserts these specimens of monkish verse in the hope that some of his poetical friends may favour him with a translation. 511 CORRESPONDENCE. The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions ON THE DOCTRINE OF ST. IGNATIUS. SIR,-A friend of mine lately shewed me an article in the British Critic for last January, professing to be a review of Mr. Jacobson's late edition of the Apostolical Fathers, but in reality a critique upon the opinions of St. Ignatius. I was sorry to find in it so much that appeared to me reprehensible, and I entertained a hope that some of your correspondents would take notice of it; your April number, however, being silent on the subject, I take up the pen myself. letter is longer than I could have wished, but I know not how to curtail it. My While the article in the review calls for animadversion in many particulars, I have in my present letter confined myself to a scrutiny of the interpretations of certain passages of Ignatius contained in page 65 of the review. They are introduced to confirm a doctrine, which the reviewer fancies that he finds in Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, and Cyril of Alexandria; and which, having endeavoured to fasten upon Ignatius, he proceeds to call "a great and sacred doctrine, which has ever been held in the church catholic." The reviewer quotes no text of holy scripture to authorize his doctrine, but seems to think that if there be nothing in holy scripture inconsistent with it, we are bound, on such authority, to receive it. This was not the way in which the fathers of our reformation proceeded in their discovery of catholic truth; and I shall be very glad to hear that it is not the way of the reviewer. As brevity is very desirable, I shall endeavour to consult it, even at the expense of being unintelligible to some of your readers; and therefore I beg, in the beginning, to direct such of them as have not seen the review, to read it, warning them in the first place, to beware of all such undefined formulæ as church catholic, church system, catholic truth, &c. &c., which are equally used by our church writers, by the Romanists, and by some divines at Oxford, but with very different meanings. Secondly, not to believe all that the reviewer tells them. I am the last man to say that he would wilfully mislead them; but he seems to be a person of a mystical turn of mind, and, I dare say, much absorbed in patristical reading, not the most healthy occupation, if in excess, for a man of his constitution; and his judgment is now no longer a safe guide. The study of the ecclesiastical fathers is like wine, wholesome and useful to certain constitutions under certain restrictions; but some may have too much of it, and then it mystifies. And thirdly, I beg to present to them a passage from Dr. Waterland's Essay on the Use and Value of Ecclesiastical Antiquity, vol. 5, p. 317 "That the church of England has a very particular regard to antiquity may sufficiently appear from a canon set forth in the same year when our articles were first perfected and authorized by act of parliament—namely, in the year 1571. By that canon it is provided, that preachers shall not presume to deliver anything from the pulpit, as of moment, to be religiously observed and believed by the people, but that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old or New Testament, and collected out of the same doctrine by the catholic fathers and the bishops of the ancient church.' A wise regulation, formed with exquisite judgment, and worded with the exactest caution. The canon does not order that they shall teach whatever had been taught by fathers;-no, that would have been setting up a new rule of faith: neither does it say, that they shall teach whatsoever the fathers had collected from scripture;—no, that would have been making them infallible interpreters, or infallible reasoners: the doctrine must be found first in scripture; only to be more secure that we have found it there, the fathers are to be called in, to be, as it were, constant checks upon the presumption or wantonness of private interpretation.” So far Dr. Waterland. And now let them read the review. I now proceed to what I have undertaken. I shall first make an extract from the review, pp. 65-67, omitting a large portion of p. 66, as not necessary to my purpose, which is merely to state the doctrine in the reviewer's language, and to give the translations of St. Ignatius in connexion with it. The reviewer says: ence. "We have now to proceed to ground, not more sacred indeed than what has formed our subject hitherto, for that cannot be; but which requiring to be examined more minutely, and in its details, cannot be entered upon without greater danger of irreverWe earnestly hope that we shall not transgress the bounds of propriety in our introduction of solemn topics, or forget that we are writing as reviewers, not as divines; yet the line of argument in which we are engaged seems to require that we should allude to a doctrine, which yet we fear to approach from its peculiar character. Let then the following expressions of St. Ignatius be observed:- Being followers of God, and rekindling in the blood of God, (dvalwπvphoavres Év aïμarı cou,) ye have perfectly accomplished the work natural to you, (σvyyevɩKòv Eрyov,)' Eph. sect. 1. These are not the planting of the Father; if they were, they would have appeared to be branches of the cross, and their fruit would have been incorruptible; by which, in his passion, he invites you his members. The head then cannot be born without the members, God promising a oneness (ivworv) which is himself.' Trall. sect. 11. In which (the churches) I pray there may be a oneness (evwσiv) in flesh and spirit with Jesus Christ, who is one (qy our) life evermore in faith and in love which surpasseth all things, but in the first place, in Jesus and the Father.' Mag. sect. 1. Fare ye well in a unanimity of God, possessing a Spirit indivisible, which is Jesus Christ.' Ibid. sect. 15. For this cause did the Lord accept ointment upon his head, that he might breathe incorruption into his church........ Why do we waste away (droλλúμɛ0a) in folly, not considering the gift (xápioμa) which the Lord hath sent in truth?' Eph. sect. 17. (Christ) was born and baptized, that by his passion (T málɛ) he might purify water.' Ibid. sect. 18. If any one is able to remain in chastity to the honour of the flesh of the Lord, let him remain also in humbleness.' Pol. sect. 5. I have no pleasure in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life; I would have God's bread, heavenly bread, bread of life, which is flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born afterwards of the seed of David; * I am rather astonished after this exordium to read such irreverent expressions as 'God's bread,' 'God's draught.' There is a vulgar familiarity about them quite repulsive; and akin to this, I have felt equal surprise in finding among persons professing such extreme delicacy as even to object to a free exposition of scriptural truth from the pulpit, on most irrelevant grounds, that one of the party (from Oriel, if I recollect rightly) should have been allowed, without any public remonstrance, to disgust all truly Christian minds by several Morning-Post expositions of the doctrine of the Lord's supper. Did the end sanctify the means? and I would have God's draught, his blood, which is love incorruptible and everspringing life.' Rom. sect. 7. "Now it is very remarkable how modern readers receive such passages. They come to them with low notions-they never suspect that they allude to anything which they cannot reach, and being unable to discern any high objects to which such language is appropriate, they pronounce it hyperbolical.. "Let us be persuaded to take his words literally, and not think the literal interpretation too strange to be the true one, and we shall come very nearly to a great and sacred doctrine, which, while it exculpates our author from all appearance of turgidity or declamation, has ever been held in the church catholic. It would seem then to be certain, that Ignatius considers our life and salvation to lie, not in the atonement by itself, but in the incarnation, but neither in the incarnation nor atonement as past events, but as present truths, as the existing state in which our Saviour comes to us, or, to speak more plainly, in our Saviour himself, who is God in our flesh, and not only so, but in flesh which has been offered up on the cross in sacrifice, has died and has risen. The being made man, the being crucified in atonement, the being raised again, are the three past events through which the eternal Son has vouchsafed to become to us what he is a Saviour; and those who omit the resurrection in their view of the divine economy, are as really defective in faith as if they omitted the crucifixion. On the cross he paid the debt of the world, but as he could not have been crucified without first taking flesh, so we do not see how he could make use of his atonement without rising again. Accordingly, St. Ignatius speaks of our being saved, and living not simply in the atonement, but as the passages already quoted signify, in the flesh and blood of Christ, first sacrificed, then communicated to us." I have thus given your readers the reviewer's doctrine, and the passages which in his opinion signify it. I shall now present the original texts from which the reviewer's translations are made, one by one, together with his comments upon them, and afterwards subjoin what I believe to be the true meaning. The first passage is from the epistle to the Ephesians, sect. 1, and is as follows: μιμηταὶ ὄντες Θεοῦ, ἀναζωπυρήσαντες ἐν αἵματι Θεοῦ, τὸ συγγενικὸν ἔργον τελείως ἀπηρτίσατε· (ἀκούσαντες γὰρ δεδεμένον ἀπὸ Συρίας ὑπὲρ τοῦ κοινοῦ ὀνόματος καὶ ἐλπίδος, κ. τ. λ.) The reviewer's translation is already given; and in commenting on this passage in the part of his review immediately following the large extract which I have made, he says— “Αναζωπυρήσαντες ἐν αἵματι Θεοῦ. If this merely means that we are raised to a new life by the atonement, or by the moral effect of the knowledge of the doctrine, it is certainly strained and inflated language: but if it be taken literally, the idea will rise and the language will sink. If it means what the church catholic teaches, that the oap and aipa of the word incarnate is in some real, though unknown way, communicated to our souls and bodies, and thus becomes the principle of a new life, then no words can reach what is intended." I shall now present your readers with my interpretation of this pas sage; a passage found in a section considered by the commentators, and justly, mutilam et hiulcam. The reader therefore may fail to obtain full satisfaction; perhaps he ought not to expect it; but I wish him to examine the reviewer's interpretation and mine, and then to consider which is the more just and natural, which is the more in unison with the general language and sentiments of Ignatius and with the occasion on which he writes. The circumstances of the parties were these: The churches of Asia, aware of the approaching fate of Ignatius, and burning with admiration at his devoted and truly Christian conduct, in sacrificing his life for the safety of his flock, having heard that on his way to Rome he would touch at Smyrna, hasten to send deputations of the brethren to testify their love and sympathy; among these were the Ephesian deputies. Ignatius, grateful for these marks of their affection, returns a letter to each particular church; and in writing to the Ephesians, alludes to their conduct, and says, "Being imitators of God, (who is love,) and more intensely kindling at my situation, (ȧvažwπvρhσartes,) through the blood of God, (a bond of friendship constraining us to love, so that when one member suffers all the other members suffer with it.) You have well performed the office congenial to your feelings: (for having heard that I was on my way from Syria in fetters for our common name and hope," &c.) The apparent difficulty in the passage is in the words ἐν αἵματι Θεοῦ. But there is a passage in his epistle to the church at Philadelphia which, to my mind, unfolds the sense intended by Ignatius in the words before us. Addressing that church, he says, ἣν ἀσπάζομαι ἐν αἵματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ· the same phrase, be it remarked, as ἐν αἵματι Θεοῦ. In this passage, instead of saying as is usual, "whom I salute in the Lord," or, as my brethren in the Lord," he inserts the word aïμa, enlarging the meaning, and saying, "whom I salute as brethren connected with me by the bond or cement of Christ's blood." If we take this sense and apply it to the passage under examination, and I know of no reason why we should not, it will give an appropriate and natural sense, which to me is a great argument in its favour. I have accordingly done so. Perhaps it may be worth observing that the language of St. Ignatius is very peculiar; I may say, bold; very different from the apostolical language, and from that of Clement of Rome, or Polycarp. At this time he was naturally under considerable excitement, and he seems to have been while at Antioch most grievously harassed by the various heresies around him. We might almost say, judging from his letters, that his mind was engrossed and occupied with three ideas; at least, the divinity of Christ, the real suffering on the cross, and the necessity of the most complete Christian union, are his leading topics; so much . so, that he is perpetually introducing-nay, often forcing, these ideas into passages where writers under ordinary feelings would not have thought of inserting them. This may probably account for his insertion of the word aua in the salutation to the church at Philadelphia, which otherwise might have had the form of the common Christian salutation; and also for his insertion of it into a passage in the epistle to the church at Smyrna, sect. 1, evidently copied from St. Paul, (Eph. iii. 17;) and perhaps it may account for his introduction of it into the passage under examination. But with respect to the reviewer's interpretation. I ask him to point out one single instance of any scholar but himself, or some of his cotranslators at Oxford, who has ever given to the words ȧvalwνρhσανTES iv aïμarı Oɛov, or to any similar phrase, in any ecclesiastical author, the sense which he here assigns to them; and if he could, I do not think that he would be much benefited. The doctrine, even if true, and if it had been known to St. Ignatius, is so very far-fetched to |